Is there a way to disable the screen lock, but only when certain (user specified) programs are running?

For example, when I'm calibrating my monitor - it takes a long time and there's not really anything else I can be doing while it's running. If the screen locks while it's running, the spectrometer is taking readings from a blank screen...

If there's a way to do this (I feel like there must be), I haven't been able to figure it out.

I've been looking for the best way to do this too. There is a script solution called lightsonplus that runs as a daemon and detects when video players are in fullscreen:https://github.com/devkral/lightsonplusbut I haven't really used it yet. Looks like it will need some editing for what I want to do.

I think it depends on what app is doing the blanking/locking/screensaving and how it can be interacted with. This would be a great feature for all of them to support.

there's a proper way of doing this, but depending on your setup it can involve many different applications, starting with systemd, power management, Xorg's own rudimentary screensaver, other screensavwers...

it might be easier to simply write a little script that will wiggle the mouse regularly.look at xdotool.

Just disable screen blanking when you don't want the screen to blank, and re-enable it again when you want screen blanking. It will literally take you half a second to do this versus who knows how long to cobble a bunch of crap together to do it in only certain instances.

fortune -o Your love life will be... interesting. How did it know?

The U.S. uses the metric system too, we have tenths, hundredths and thousandths of inches

Just disable screen blanking when you don't want the screen to blank, and re-enable it again when you want screen blanking. It will literally take you half a second to do this versus who knows how long to cobble a bunch of crap together to do it in only certain instances.

That should work fine disabling screensaver manually. This is very easy to do, no matter what method. Unfortunately people forget. In my case it's when watching movies, which I love. When I watch a movie, I like to get it cued, get the sound set just right, get the snacks together, sit down and stay there. Having to get up and pause the movie, disable the screensaver, and sit back down ruins the whole movie for me. It just isn't the same, and why should I have to remember something that my computer can easily do for me, with proper instruction?

I set my screensaver for ten minutes, which is JUST when a lot of movies are getting good. Here is where the movie is interrupted after ten minutes in some of my favorites.

This exclusion by app idea would be a very welcome feature for me in any screen blank/saver/locking doodad. This wouldn't really be ideal though, because I do like the screensaver to work when I am playng music. That is the idea behind the lightsonplus script. It tried to detect fullscreen on several different media players. I think it's a decent idea, and I'm going to tweak it and give it a try.